In 2003 when Konami's Koji Igarashi released Castlevania: Lament of Innocence for the PS2, it was met with mixed reactions. Many thought it was blasphemy for their beloved Castlevania series to be transformed into 3 dimensions, and to a certain extent, they were right. Although the game was fun, there was definitely room for improvement. Now, Igarashi is back with his second stab at the 3D hack-and-slash action genre. Unfortunately, while Nano Breaker's concept is sound, its implementation introduces a slew of problems, which bring the experience crashing down. These flaws turn what could have been a good game into an tedious exercise in patience.

You start the game playing as Jake, a cyborg seemingly infamous for his crimes against the human race. Apparently, during war time, Jake was a monster on the battlefield, mercilessly slaughtering anyone he came across, including innocent women and children. For this he was sentenced to be executed; but not before he could receive one final chance to redeem himself. It just so happens that the government has fowled up again and another scientific experiment has gone terribly wrong. As it turns out, their own nanomachine technology has begun to take over a classified research island by infesting its inhabitants and turning them into robot slaves. To make matters worse, a clearly suicidal scientist has gone in alone to try to rectify the nanomachine threat, and now needs rescuing herself. In the government's last act of desperation, they send in Jake, the hardened war criminal, to save the scientist and rid the island of the parasitic nanobots. From here, the game itself actually begins, however from a storytelling standpoint this is where it seems to end. Other than this premise, the story never really goes anywhere, and it will have you forgetting that a plot even exists. Perhaps, though, this is for the best.

Jake's only weapon in the game is a futuristic plasma sword, used to slice and dice anything that moves. The controls for the sword are fairly straightforward: there are horizontal, vertical and jumping slashes as well as an outward grappling whip, which functions exactly as it sounds. The gimmick of the game is that during combat slain enemies will spill what seems like barrels of red (or another color of your choosing) "liquid," often totally saturating the environment after large battles. It's a pretty neat effect, and the amount that you spill actually determines what bonuses you receive from enemies. Unfortunately, this feature doesn't come without a price, and the frame rate will often drop significantly when there is too much liquid onscreen.

Nano Breaker also features a rudimentary combo system. With specific combos, the blade itself can transform into other weapons to deliver devastating attacks. The game is actually based around these combos, which are all upgradeable via "combo chips" scattered across the island. When a combo chip is found, it can be equipped to further increase the amount of hits and damage a particular button sequence will do to an enemy. While the custom combo system is an interesting concept, and some of the combos do have nice special effects, it really isn't all that useful during gameplay. This is mainly due to the grappling whip, which is by far the most effective means of dispatching enemies. If timed correctly, Jake's sword can execute an instant kill move directly after a grapple. With some practice, it's easy to master this technique, and with the exception of bosses and a few larger enemies, this strategy never fails. It's unfortunate, because this instant kill move effectively renders the entire combo system pointless.

Compounding this problem is a ridiculously simplistic enemy AI. Enemies will slowly walk around attacking at randomly generated intervals. In fact, the only time that they pose any real threat is when they group up and repeat this behavior. The game's boss battles are also pretty lackluster. Their movement and attack patterns are mostly apparent from the get go, and their difficulty can range from needlessly easy to annoyingly hard. This shift in difficulty is in part due to poor level design choices. For example, one of the bosses in the later levels requires that you proceed through a long, drawn out fight with many grunt enemies prior to squaring off. These encounters can lower your life gauge significantly, and since there are no life-ups anywhere along the path, you are forced to fight the boss at a significant disadvantage. In the event that you die while fighting the boss, the game then restarts from the beginning of the section, repeating this infuriating cycle.

To top it all off, the developers chose to add various jump puzzles to the game, which are all absolutely painful to complete. More often than not, you will be throwing your controller down in pure frustration as you repeatedly fall at the same exact spot. It probably wouldn't be so bad if the camera could move or at least be placed in a useful position. As it is, you will often be making blind jumps to platforms off the screen, and a 2D fixed camera will kick in when the puzzles themselves are in 3D. Combine that with clunky jump mechanics and timed puzzles and you have a recipe for disaster.

Graphically, Nano Breaker could look better. Gray is the general tone of this game, and it really never changes as you progress. Every environment has a gray or brown tileset, with the exception of a few indoor areas. It does fit the mood of the game, but it still doesn't look all that great. The in-game models are also decent at best, with only the bosses looking like big and powerful nanomachines. The game's draw distance is another limiting factor, as you will only be able to see about 20 feet in any direction. Regardless, it probably doesn't make much of a difference anyway, as only more gray awaits you behind the fog. The only real highlight of Nano Breakers graphics are it's pre-rendered cutscenes, which look quite good comparatively, making you wish that the rest of the game's visuals weren't so bland.

The game's sound is probably its strongest asset, but that's not saying much. The music is well done and despite some tracks sounding a little off, it fits the game pretty well. The sounds of combat are also pretty standard, but again, it fits the game overall. The voice acting during cut scenes is pretty forgettable, but for a translated script, it could have been much worse.

Nano Breaker is a perfect example of a good idea gone bad. The game's concept of excessively violent hack-and-slash combat mixed with a customizable combo system could have been much more enjoyable had it been executed properly. Instead, all that's there is a game that offers boring visuals, little-to-no story, and irritating gameplay. There are simply too many problems with Nano Breaker to make it recommendable to anyone, even die-hard Lament of Innocence fans. If you're looking for an enjoyable hack-and-slash action game, you'd do well to look elsewhere.